Investigators at University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center previously identified a new and promising drug to treat neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and traumatic brain injury.

The collaborative study, co-led by Andrew A. Pieper, MD, Ph.D., and Sanford Markowitz, MD, Ph.D., and awarded the 2025 Cozzarelli Prize in Biomedical Sciences, showed that inhibition of an enzyme in the immune system, known as 15-PGDH (15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase), was potently neuroprotective by restraining the production of reactive oxygen species that damage the brain.